Setting how much chat history to keep

If you're an admin, you can choose how much chat history Hipchat stores for your group: all of it, by age, by number of messages, or even none.

To set your group's chat history retention, log into Hipchat in your browser and go to Group admin > Preferences and scroll down to Data Management. Rooms and 1-to-1 chats retain chat history according to how you set the retention here.

You can override the group's retention setting in specific rooms. Let's say your team wants all chat history stored in all of their rooms, but not in a room they've dedicated to animated gifs and all things fun. On the Preferences page, select the retention setting to store all chat history. Then, in the one room modify the chat history retention to store, for example, only the last ten days.

To set a room's chat history retention, log into Hipchat in your browser, go to Group admin > Rooms > Select the room > History retention.

Chat history retention settings

Which settings you have and how much storage depends on the Hipchat plan you're on.

By default, Hipchat retains all chat history for your group. (Check the Group info page to see how much storage space your group has.)

You can retain chat history by age (for example, 7 days or 30 days). Hipchat deletes any chat messages, files, and links older than the age you specify. For example, if you choose to store 30 days of chat history, Hipchat deletes all messages, files, and links older than 30 days. The deletions happen nightly.

You can store the last 75 messages. Hipchat retains your most recent 75 messages and deletes any chat messages past the 75th message. Links and files will continue to show in the Files and Links lists of rooms.

You can choose to retain no chat history. When you do so, Hipchat stops retaining new chat messages. New files and links people share in rooms show in the Files and Links lists. If you had existing chat messages before you switched to retaining no history, Hipchat hides those messages. Any files and links people previously shared continue to show in the Files and Links lists.

Who can view chat history

Chat history includes the messages and files shared in rooms and 1-to-1 chats.

All users in your Hipchat group can view the chat history of open rooms.

Users can view the chat history of private rooms they're members of. Administrators can view the chat history of privates rooms, too. (If they're not members of the private rooms, they can't join and participate in the chat.)

Any room that has guest access enabled allows anyone with the URL to join and view messages and files sent from the point at which they join and forward.

The two people involved in 1-to-1 chats can view their 1-to-1 chat history. However, administrators can also get access to 1-to-1 chat history by contacting Hipchat Support. Administrators must meet certain requirements to get access.